SHOPPING FOR CHAIRS WITH MIKE

I recently went with Mike to shop for chairs for his living room. Mike likes modern stuff, and we we ended up at some pretty weird places. If you thought this kind of furniture was replaced by something else, think again. There's a lot of it out there and it still sells!

Mike rejected furniture like this (above), but only because it didn't come in leather. 

Is there really gender specific furniture? I did see a couple of chairs with separate cushions for each buttock. 

Hmmmmmmm.

50s modern is still out there. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get chairs like the ones above at Ikea. 

Maybe I was too hasty when I said that all modernism is still with us.  Box furniture like the example above is gone forever.  It used to be popular. You could even buy box beds. I guess people were so taken by their TVs that they wanted to live in them.  This style was ridiculed by later modernists who preferred to live in eggs.

Poor Mike couldn't get this (above) in leather either.

Thank God none of the stores had one of these (above). If they had, I'd have had to buy one, and my family would have moved out.

Ditto this chair (above). Some things must be acquired regardless of the consequences. 

I used to like chairs like this (above), but I didn't see them this time around. Can you still get them?

REAL CLIFF STERRET FURNITURE!

I don't know how many times I've heard cartoonists say that they wish they could live in a Cliff Sterret house. That's Cliff Sterret's work above, and I too would like to have a house (or at least a room) furnished like that. Come to think of it, I almost did.

In the early 80s there was a serious attempt to sell Cliff Sterret-type furniture. It started with a design studio in Milan called "Memphis," headed up by Ettore Sottsass. That's his studio's work above. Not everything in the photo is his best work, but you get the idea.

I remember thinking at the time that this comic-strip furniture wouldn't last forever, and that I'd better buy some stuff before it disappeared. Real Memphis furniture was out of my price range so I waited for cheaper knockoffs, but when they came the quality was lacking. Not only that but Memphis didn't always hit home runs. I kept waiting for knock-offs of the better works but they were a long time coming. Memphis took a big hit because of the timidity of furniture manufacturers, and Memphis's distaste for comfortable furniture.  

The Sterret influence was obvious to cartoonists, but I don't remember any art critic pointing it out. Critics were probably ignorant of cartoon styles. 

Try to deny that this vase (above) was influenced by Sterret!

Here's (above) some Memphis teapots. In this case the influence was probably Picasso or Picabia. It's funny how teapots are always on the front line of new design movements. I guess prototype ceramic pots are easier to make than steal cutlery.

This is my favorite Memphis design...the futuristic antler bookshelf painted with kid colors. I'd still like to have a shelf like this.

This sofa (above) would look great in a comic strip. I wonder why no newspaper artist of the 1980s  attempted to parody modern furniture styling in a strip. I mean parody it the way Sterret used to. Of course by the 80s the newspaper strips were almost as tiny as they are now. Maybe there was no room. 

Also, it looks like the sofa is made of cheap plywood with fabric stapled onto foam. Memphis had good ideas but you get the feeling that no one with real furniture know-how worked there. 

The designer of this table (above) must have channeled Sterret!

Sterret liked to design the patterns in draperies and chair covers, and so did Memphis. That's their work above.

Like I said, Memphis didn't always hit home runs. The chair above looks pretty uncomfortable. It would have looked great in a comic strip or a cartoon, though!